Chapter IV: Introduction (3)

I was walking a day or two after with an English friend, who was also a delegate to the International Literary Congress, in the Exhibition, when we approached the side gate, or rear entrance of the Hungarian cafe. Six or seven dark and strange-looking men stood about, dressed in the uniform of a military band. I caught their glances, and saw that they were Romany.

"Now you shall see something queer," I said to my friend.

So advancing to the first dark man I greeted him in gypsy.

"I do not understand you," he promptly replied--or lied.

I turned to a second.

"You have more sense, and you do understand. _Adro miro tem penena mande o baro rai_." (In my country the gypsies call me the great gentleman.)

This phrase may be translated to mean either the "tall gentleman" or the "great lord." It was apparently taken in the latter sense, for at once all the party bowed very low, raising their hands to their foreheads, in Oriental fashion.

"Hallo!" exclaimed my English friend, who had not understood what I had said. "What game is this you are playing on these fellows?"

Up to the front came a superior, the leader of the band.

"Great God!" he exclaimed, "what is this I hear? This is wonderful. To think that there should be anybody here to talk with! I can only talk Magyar and Romanes."

"And what do you talk?" I inquired of the first violin.

"_Ich spreche nur Deutsch_!" he exclaimed, with a strong Vienna accent and a roar of laughter. "I only talk German."

This worthy man, I found, was as much delighted with my German as the leader with my gypsy; and in all my experience I never met two beings so charmed at being able to converse. That I should have met with them was of itself wonderful. Only there was this difference: that the Viennese burst into a laugh every time he spoke, while the gypsy grew more sternly solemn and awfully impressive. There are people to whom mere talking is a pleasure,--never mind the ideas,--and here I had struck two at once. I once knew a gentleman named Stewart. He was the mayor, first physician, and postmaster of St. Paul, Minnesota. While camping out, _en route_, and in a tent with him, it chanced that among the other gentlemen who had tented with us there were two terrible snorers. Now Mr. Stewart had heard that you may stop a man's snoring by whistling. And here was a wonderful opportunity. "So I waited," he said, "until one man was coming down with his snore, _diminuendo_, while the other was rising, _crescendo_, and at the exact point of intersection, _moderato_, I blew my car-whistle, and so got both birds at one shot. I stopped them both." Even as Mayor Stewart had winged his two birds with one ball had I hit my two peregrines.

"We are now going to perform," said the gypsy captain. "Will you not take seats on the platform, and hear us play?"

I did not know it at the time, but I heard afterwards that this was a great compliment, and one rarely bestowed. The platform was small, and we were very near our new friends. Scarcely had the performance begun ere I perceived that, just as the gypsies in Russia had sung their best in my honor, these artists were exerting themselves to the utmost, and, all unheeding the audience, playing directly at me and into me. When any _tour_ was deftly made the dark master nodded to me with gleaming eyes, as if saying, "What do you think of _that_, now?" The Viennese laughed for joy every time his glance met mine, and as I looked at the various Lajoshes and Joshkas of the band, they blew, beat, or scraped with redoubled fury, or sank into thrilling tenderness. Hurrah! here was somebody to play to who knew gypsy and all the games thereof; for a very little, even a word, reveals a great deal, and I must be a virtuoso, at least by Romany, if not by art. It was with all the joy of success that the first piece ended amid thunders of applause.

"That was not the _racoczy_," I said. "Yet it sounded like it."

"No," said the captain. "But _now_ you shall hear the _racoczy_ and the _czardas_ as you never heard them before. For we can play that better than any orchestra in Vienna. Truly, you will never forget us after hearing it."

And then they played the _racoczy_, the national Hungarian favorite, of gypsy composition, with heart and soul. As these men played for me, inspired with their own music, feeling and enjoying it far more than the audience, and all because they had got a gypsy gentleman to play to, I appreciated what a _life_ that was to them, and what it should be; not cold-blooded skill, aiming only at excellence or preexcellence and at setting up the artist, but a fire and a joy, a self-forgetfulness which whirls the soul away as the soul of the Moenad went with the stream adown the mountains,--_Evoe Bacchus_! This feeling is deep in the heart of the Hungarian gypsy; he plays it, he feels it in every air, he knows the rush of the stream as it bounds onwards,--knows that it expresses his deepest desire; and so he has given it words in a song which, to him who has the key, is one of the most touching ever written:--

"Dyal o pani repedishis,
M'ro pirano hegedishis;

"Dyal o pani tale vatra,
M'ro pirano klanetaha.

"Dyal o pani pe kishai
M'ro pirano tsino rai."

"The stream runs on with rushing din
As I hear my true love's violin;

"And the river rolls o'er rock and stone
As he plays the flute so sweet alone.

"Runs o'er the sand as it began,
Then my true love lives a gentleman."

Yes, music whirling the soul away as on a rushing river, the violin notes falling like ripples, the flute tones all aflow among the rocks; and when it sweeps _adagio_ on the sandy bed, then the gypsy player is at heart equal to a lord, then he feels a gentleman. The only true republic is art. There all earthly distinctions pass away; there he is best who lives and feels best, and makes others feel, not that he is cleverer than they, but that he can awaken sympathy and joy.

The intense reality of musical art as a comforter to these gypsies of Eastern Europe is wonderful. Among certain inedited songs of the Transylvanian gypsies, in the Kolosvarer dialect, I find the following:--

"Na janav ko dad m'ro as,
Niko mallen mange as,
Miro gule dai merdyas
Pirani me pregelyas.
Uva tu o hegedive
Tu sal mindik pash mange."

"I've known no father since my birth,
I have no friend alive on earth;
My mother's dead this many day,
The girl I loved has gone her way;
Thou violin with music free
Alone art ever true to me."

It is very wonderful that the charm of the Russian gypsy girls' singing was destroyed by the atmosphere or applause of a Paris concert-room, while the Hungarian Romanys conquered it as it were by sheer force, and by conquering gave their music the charm of intensity. I do not deny that in this music, be it of voice or instruments, there is much which is perhaps imagined, which depends on association, which is plain to John but not to Jack; but you have only to advance or retreat a few steps to find the same in the highest art. This, at least, we know: that no performer at any concert in London can awake the feeling of intense enjoyment which these wild minstrels excite in themselves and in others by sympathy. Now it is a question in many forms as to whether art for enjoyment is to die, and art for the sake of art alone survive. Is joyous and healthy nature to vanish step by step from the heart of man, and morbid, egoistic pessimism to take its place? Are over-culture, excessive sentiment, constant self-criticism, and all the brood of nervous curses to monopolize and inspire art? A fine alliance this they are making, the ascetic monk and the atheistic pessimist, to kill Nature! They will never effect it. It may die in many forms. It may lose its charm, as the singing of Sarsha and of Liubasha was lost among the rustling and noise of thousands of Parisian _badauds_ in the Orangerie. But there will be stronger forms of art, which will make themselves heard, as the Hungarian Romanys heeded no din, and bore all away with their music.

"_Latcho divvus miri pralia_!--_miduvel atch pa tumende_!" (Good-day, my brothers. God rest on you) I said, and they rose and bowed, and I went forth into the Exhibition. It was a brave show, that of all the fine things from all parts of the world which man can make, but to me the most interesting of all were the men themselves. Will not the managers of the next world show give us a living ethnological department?

Of these Hungarian gypsies who played in Paris during the Exhibition much was said in the newspapers, and from the following, which appeared in an American journal, written by some one to me unknown, the reader may learn that there were many others to whom their music was deeply thrilling or wildly exciting:--

"The Hungarian Tziganes (Zigeuner) are the rage just now at Paris.
The story is that Liszt picked out the individuals composing the band
one by one from among the gypsy performers in Hungary and Bohemia.
Half-civilized in appearance, dressed in an unbecoming half-military
costume, they are nothing while playing Strauss' waltzes or their
own; but when they play the Radetsky Defile, the Racoksky March, or
their marvelous czardas, one sees and hears the battle, and it is
easy to understand the influence of their music in fomenting
Hungarian revolutions; why for so long it was made treasonable to
play or listen to these czardas; and why, as they heard them, men
rose to their feet, gathered together, and with tears rolling down
their faces, and throats swelling with emotion, departed to do or
die."

And when I remember that they played for me as they said they had played for no other man in Paris, "into the ear,"--and when I think of the gleam in their eyes, I verily believe they _told_ the truth,--I feel glad that I chanced that morning on those dark men and spoke to them in Romany.

* * * * *

Since the above was written I have met in an entertaining work called "Unknown Hungary," by Victor Tissot, with certain remarks on the Hungarian gypsy musicians which are so appropriate that I cite them in full:--

"The gypsy artists in Hungary play by inspiration, with inimitable
_verve_ and spirit, without even knowing their notes, and nothing
whatever of the rhymes and rules of the masters. Liszt, who has
closely studied them, says, The art of music being for them a sublime
language, a song, mystic in itself, though dear to the initiated,
they use it according to the wants of the moment which they wish to
express. They have invented their music for their own use, to sing
about themselves to themselves, to express themselves in the most
heartfelt and touching monologues.

"Their music is as free as their lives; no intermediate modulation,
no chords, no transition, it goes from one key to another. From
ethereal heights they precipitate you into the howling depths of
hell; from the plaint, barely heard, they pass brusquely to the
warrior's song, which bursts loudly forth, passionate and tender, at
once burning and calm. Their melodies plunge you into a melancholy
reverie, or carry you away into a stormy whirlwind; they are a
faithful expression of the Hungarian character, sometimes quick,
brilliant, and lively, sometimes sad and apathetic.

"The gypsies, when they arrived in Hungary, had no music of their
own; they appropriated the Magyar music, and made from it an original
art which now belongs to them."

I here break in upon Messieurs Tissot and Liszt to remark that, while it is very probable that the Roms reformed Hungarian music, it is rather boldly assumed that they had no music of their own. It was, among other callings, as dancers and musicians that they left India and entered Europe, and among them were doubtless many descendants of the ten thousand Indo-Persian Luris or Nuris. But to resume quotation:--

"They made from it an art full of life, passion, laughter, and tears.
The instrument which the gypsies prefer is the violin, which they
call _bas' alja_, 'the king of instruments.' They also play the
viola, the cymbal, and the clarionet.

"There was a pause. The gypsies, who had perceived at a table a
comfortable-looking man, evidently wealthy, and on a pleasure
excursion in the town, came down from their platform, and ranged
themselves round him to give him a serenade all to himself, as is
their custom. They call this 'playing into the ear.'

"They first asked the gentleman his favorite air, and then played it
with such spirit and enthusiasm and overflowing richness of variation
and ornament, and with so much emotion, that it drew forth the
applause of the whole company. After this they executed a czardas,
one of the wildest, most feverish, harshest, and, one may say,
tormenting, as if to pour intoxication into the soul of their
listener. They watched his countenance to note the impression
produced by the passionate rhythm of their instruments; then,
breaking off suddenly, they played a hushed, soft, caressing measure;
and again, almost breaking the trembling cords of their bows, they
produced such an intensity of effect that the listener was almost
beside himself with delight and astonishment. He sat as if
bewitched; he shut his eyes, hung his head in melancholy, or raised
it with a start, as the music varied; then jumped up and struck the
back of his head with his hands. He positively laughed and cried at
once; then, drawing a roll of bank-notes from his pocket-book, he
threw it to the gypsies, and fell back in his chair, as if exhausted
with so much enjoyment. And in _this_ lies the triumph of the gypsy
music; it is like that of Orpheus, which moved the rocks and trees.
The soul of the Hungarian plunges, with a refinement of sensation
that we can understand, but cannot follow, into this music, which,
like the unrestrained indulgence of the imagination in fantasy and
caprice, gives to the initiated all the intoxicating sensations
experienced by opium smokers."

The Austrian gypsies have many songs which perfectly reflect their character. Most of them are only single verses of a few lines, such as are sung everywhere in Spain; others, which are longer, seem to have grown from the connection of these verses. The following translation from the Roumanian Romany (Vassile Alexandri) gives an idea of their style and spirit:--

GYPSY SONG.

The wind whistles over the heath,
The moonlight flits over the flood;
And the gypsy lights up his fire,
In the darkness of the wood.
Hurrah!
In the darkness of the wood.

Free is the bird in the air,
And the fish where the river flows;
Free is the deer in the forest,
And the gypsy wherever he goes.
Hurrah!
And the gypsy wherever he goes.

A GORGIO GENTLEMAN SPEAKS.

Girl, wilt thou live in my home?
I will give thee a sable gown,
And golden coins for a necklace,
If thou wilt be my own.

GYPSY GIRL.

No wild horse will leave the prairie
For a harness with silver stars;
Nor an eagle the crags of the mountain,
For a cage with golden bars;

Nor the gypsy girl the forest,
Or the meadow, though gray and cold,
For garments made of sable,
Or necklaces of gold.

THE GORGIO.

Girl, wilt thou live in my dwelling,
For pearls and diamonds true? {82}
I will give thee a bed of scarlet,
And a royal palace, too.

GYPSY GIRL.

My white teeth are my pearlins,
My diamonds my own black eyes;
My bed is the soft green meadow,
My palace the world as it lies.

Free is the bird in the air,
And the fish where the river flows;
Free is the deer in the forest,
And the gypsy wherever he goes.
Hurrah!
And the gypsy wherever he goes.

There is a deep, strange element in the gypsy character, which finds no sympathy or knowledge in the German, and very little in other Europeans, but which is so much in accord with the Slavonian and Hungarian that he who truly feels it with love is often disposed to mingle them together. It is a dreamy mysticism; an indefinite semi-supernaturalism, often passing into gloom; a feeling as of Buddhism which has glided into Northern snows, and taken a new and darker life in winter-lands. It is strong in the Czech or Bohemian, whose nature is the worst understood in the civilized world. That he should hate the German with all his heart and soul is in the order of things. We talk about the mystical Germans, but German self-conscious mysticism is like a problem of Euclid beside the natural, unexpressed dreaminess of the Czech. The German mystic goes to work at once to expound his "system" in categories, dressing it up in a technology which in the end proves to be the only mystery in it. The Bohemian and gypsy, each in their degrees of culture, form no system and make no technology, but they feel all the more. Now the difference between true and imitative mysticism is that the former takes no form; it is even narrowed by religious creeds, and wing-clipt by pious "illumination." Nature, and nature alone, is its real life. It was from the Southern Slavonian lands that all real mysticism, and all that higher illumination which means freedom, came into Germany and Europe; and after all, Germany's first and best mystic, Jacob Bohme, was Bohemian by name, as he was by nature. When the world shall have discovered who the as yet unknown Slavonian German was who wrote all the best part of "Consuelo," and who helped himself in so doing from "Der letzte Taborit," by Herlossohn, we shall find one of the few men who understood the Bohemian.

Once in a while, as in Fanny Janauschek, the Czech bursts out into art, and achieves a great triumph. I have seen Rachel and Ristori many a time, but their best acting was shallow compared to Janauschek's, as I have seen it in by-gone years, when she played Iphigenia and Medea in German. No one save a Bohemian could ever so _intuit_ the gloomy profundity and unearthly fire of the Colchian sorceress. These are the things required to perfect every artist,--above all, the tragic artist,--that the tree of his or her genius shall not only soar to heaven among the angels, but also have roots in the depths of darkness and fire; and that he or she shall play not only to the audience, and in sympathy with them, but also unto one's self and down to one's deepest dreams.

No one will accuse me of wide discussion or padding who understands my drift in this chapter. I am speaking of the gypsy, and I cannot explain him more clearly than by showing his affinities with the Slavonian and Magyar, and how, through music and probably in many other ways, he has influenced them. As the Spaniard perfectly understands the objective vagabond side of the Gitano, so the Southeastern European understands the musical and wild-forest yearnings of the Tsigane. Both to gypsy and Slavonian there is that which makes them dream so that even debauchery has for them at times an unearthly inspiration; and as smoking was inexpressibly sacred to the red Indians of old, so that when the Guatemalan Christ harried hell, the demons offered him cigars; in like manner tipsiness is often to the gypsy and Servian, or Czech, or Croat, something so serious and impressive that it is a thing not to be lightly thought of, but to be undertaken with intense deliberation and under due appreciation of its benefits.

Many years ago, when I had begun to feel this strange element I gave it expression in a poem which I called "The Bohemian," as expressive of both gypsy and Slavonian nature:--

THE BOHEMIAN.

Chces li tajnou vec aneb pravdu vyzvedeti
Blazen, dite opily clovek o tom umeji povodeti.

Wouldst thou know a truth or mystery,
A drunkard, fool, or child may tell it thee

BOHEMIAN PROVERB.

And now I'll wrap my blanket o'er me,
And on the tavern floor I'll lie,
A double spirit-flask before me,
And watch my pipe clouds, melting, die.

They melt and die, but ever darken
As night comes on and hides the day,
Till all is black; then, brothers, hearken,
And if ye can write down my lay.

In yon long loaf my knife is gleaming,
Like one black sail above the boat;
As once at Pesth I saw it beaming,
Half through a dark Croatian throat.

Now faster, faster, whirls the ceiling,
And wilder, wilder, turns my brain;
And still I'll drink, till, past all feeling,
My soul leaps forth to light again.

Whence come these white girls wreathing round me?
Barushka!--long I thought thee dead;
Katchenka!--when these arms last bound thee
Thou laid'st by Rajrad, cold as lead.

And faster, faster, whirls the ceiling,
And wilder, wilder, turns my brain;
And from afar a star comes stealing
Straight at me o'er the death-black plain.

Alas! I sink. My spirits miss me.
I swim, I shoot from shore to shore!
Klara! thou golden sister--kiss me!
I rise--I'm safe--I'm strong once more.

And faster, faster, whirls the ceiling,
And wilder, wilder, whirls my brain;
The star!--it strikes my soul, revealing
All life and light to me again.

* * * * *

Against the waves fresh waves are dashing,
Above the breeze fresh breezes blow;
Through seas of light new light is flashing,
And with them all I float and flow.

Yet round me rings of fire are gleaning,--
Pale rings of fire, wild eyes of death!
Why haunt me thus, awake or dreaming?
Methought I left ye with my breath!

Ay, glare and stare, with life increasing,
And leech-like eyebrows, arching in;
Be, if ye must, my fate unceasing,
But never hope a fear to win.

He who knows all may haunt the haunter,
He who fears naught hath conquered fate;
Who bears in silence quells the daunter,
And makes his spoiler desolate.

O wondrous eyes, of star-like lustre,
How have ye changed to guardian love!
Alas! where stars in myriads cluster,
Ye vanish in the heaven above.

* * * * *

I hear two bells so softly ringing;
How sweet their silver voices roll!
The one on distant hills is ringing,
The other peals within my soul.

I hear two maidens gently talking,
Bohemian maids, and fair to see:
The one on distant hills is walking,
The other maiden,--where is she?

Where is she? When the moonlight glistens
O'er silent lake or murmuring stream,
I hear her call my soul, which listens,
"Oh, wake no more! Come, love, and dream!"

She came to earth, earth's loveliest creature;
She died, and then was born once more;
Changed was her race, and changed each feature,
But yet I loved her as before.

We live, but still, when night has bound me
In golden dreams too sweet to last,
A wondrous light-blue world around me,
She comes,--the loved one of the past.

I know not which I love the dearest,
For both the loves are still the same:
The living to my life is nearest,
The dead one feeds the living flame.

And when the sun, its rose-wine quaffing,
Which flows across the Eastern deep,
Awakes us, Klara chides me, laughing,
And says we love too well in sleep.

And though no more a Voivode's daughter,
As when she lived on earth before,
The love is still the same which sought her,
And I am true, and ask no more.

* * * * *

Bright moonbeams on the sea are playing,
And starlight shines upon the hill,
And I should wake, but still delaying
In our old life I linger still.

For as the wind clouds flit above me,
And as the stars above them shine,
My higher life's in those who love me,
And higher still, our life's divine.

And thus I raise my soul by drinking,
As on the tavern floor I lie;
It heeds not whence begins our thinking
If to the end its flight is high.

E'en outcasts may have heart and feeling,
The blackest wild Tsigan be true,
And love, like light in dungeons stealing,
Though bars be there, will still burst through.

It is the reecho of more than one song of those strange lands, of more than one voice, and of many a melody; and those who have heard them, though not more distinctly than Francois Villon when he spoke of flinging the question back by silent lake and streamlet lone, will understand me, and say it is true to nature.

In a late work on Magyarland, by a lady Fellow of the Carpathian Society, I find more on Hungarian gypsy music, which is so well written that I quote fully from it, being of the opinion that one ought, when setting forth any subject, to give quite as good an opportunity to others who are in our business as to ourselves. And truly this lady has felt the charm of the Tsigan music and describes it so well that one wishes she were a Romany in language and by adoption, like unto a dozen dames and damsels whom I know.

"The Magyars have a perfect passion for this gypsy music, and there
is nothing that appeals so powerfully to their emotions, whether of
joy or sorrow. These singular musicians are, as a rule, well taught,
and can play almost any music, greatly preferring, however, their own
compositions. Their music, consequently, is highly characteristic.
It is the language of their lives and strange surroundings, a wild,
weird banshee music: now all joy and sparkle, like sunshine on the
plains; now sullen, sad, and pathetic by turns, like the wail of a
crushed and oppressed people,--an echo, it is said, of the minstrelsy
of the _hegedosok_ or Hungarian bards, but sounding to our ears like
the more distant echo of that exceeding bitter cry, uttered long
centuries ago by their forefathers under Egyptian bondage, and borne
over the time-waves of thousands of years, breaking forth in their
music of to-day."

Here I interrupt the lady--with all due courtesy--to remark that I cannot agree with her, nor with her probable authority, Walter Simson, in believing that the gypsies are the descendants of the mixed races who followed Moses out of Egypt. The Rom in Egypt is a Hindoo stranger now, as he ever was. But that the echo of centuries of outlawry and wretchedness and wildness rises and falls, like the ineffable discord in a wind-harp, in Romany airs is true enough, whatever its origin may have been. But I beg pardon, madam,--I interrupted you.

"The soul-stirring, madly exciting, and martial strains of the
Racoczys--one of the Revolutionary airs--has just died upon the ear.
A brief interval of rest has passed. Now listen with bated breath to
that recitative in the minor key,--that passionate wail, that
touching story, the gypsies' own music, which rises and falls on the
air. Knives and forks are set down, hands and arms hang listless,
all the seeming necessities of the moment being either suspended or
forgotten,--merged in the memories which those vibrations, so akin to
human language, reawaken in each heart. Eyes involuntarily fill with
tears, as those pathetic strains echo back and make present some
sorrow of long ago, or rouse from slumber that of recent time. . . .

"And now, the recitative being ended, and the last chord struck, the
melody begins, of which the former was the prelude. Watch the
movements of the supple figure of the first violin, standing in the
centre of the other musicians, who accompany him softly. How every
nerve is _en rapport_ with his instrument, and how his very soul is
speaking through it! See how gently he draws the bow across the
trembling strings, and how lovingly he lays his cheek upon it, as if
listening to some responsive echo of his heart's inmost feeling, for
it is his mystic language! How the instrument lives and answers to
his every touch, sending forth in turn utterances tender, sad, wild,
and joyous! The audience once more hold their breath to catch the
dying tones, as the melody, so rich, so beautiful, so full of pathos,
is drawing to a close. The tension is absolutely painful as the
gypsy dwells on the last lingering note, and it is a relief when,
with a loud and general burst of sound, every performer starts into
life and motion. _Then_ what crude and wild dissonances are made to
resolve themselves into delicious harmony! What rapturous and fervid
phrases, and what energy and impetuosity, are there in every motion
of the gypsies' figures, as their dark eyes glisten and emit flashes
in unison with the tones!"

The writer is gifted in giving words to gypsy music. One cannot say, as the inexhaustible Cad writes of Niagara ten times on a page in the Visitors' Book, that it is indescribable. I think that if language means anything this music has been very well described by the writers whom I have cited. When I am told that the gypsies' impetuous and passionate natures make them enter into musical action with heart and soul, I feel not only the strains played long ago, but also hear therein the horns of Elfland blowing,--which he who has not heard, of summer days, in the drone of the bee, by reedy rustling stream, will never know on earth in any wise. But once heard it comes ever, as I, though in the city, heard it last night in the winter wind, with Romany words mingled in wild refrain:--

"_Kamava tute_, _miri chelladi_!"